Niele Ivey is the head coach of the University of Notre Dame’s women’s basketball team, a position she has held since April 2020. As a former standout player for Notre Dame, Ivey led the team to its first NCAA Championship in 2001 and received the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award that same year.
Following her collegiate career, Ivey played professionally in the WNBA for teams including the Indiana Fever, Phoenix Mercury, and Detroit Shock. She later served as an assistant coach for Notre Dame’s women’s basketball team from 2007 to 2015, and as an associate head coach from 2015 to 2019.
In August 2019, she joined the Memphis Grizzlies as an assistant coach, becoming the second woman to hold such a position in the NBA. Ivey returned to Notre Dame in 2020 as head coach, and has since led the team to multiple NCAA Tournament appearances, including advancing to the Sweet 16.
She is also the mother of Jaden Ivey, who played college basketball at Purdue University and was selected by the Detroit Pistons as the fifth overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft.
For more insights, here’s an interview with Niele Ivey and player Sonia Citron after a recent NCAA tournament victory: